Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Share the Good, not good

There is a new Heineken commercial that is very reminiscent of many of the popular Coca Cola commercials of my youth being aired presently. This commercial is called "Share the Good". It features individuals from many cultures and backgrounds sharing their beer with one another. It is fine example of a ridiculous commercial. The commercial starts out okay with several scenes of a single person sharing a beer with another single person, okay, making sense so far. Then the trouble begins, there is a scene where a lumberjack type shares one beer with what appears to be a Indian celebration of some sort. Why just one beer for so many people? Did they run out of beer while shooting the commercial? Aren't they selling beer? Why not beer for everyone even the elephant! Then there is my favorite, a ballerina walks into a Russian steam room with a tray of three beers, apparently someone from the production company made a beer run. In the steam room there are FOUR or FIVE guys and the ballerina has only three beers. Who gets gypped? Who in the agency or the production company can't count? Who in the hell was the continuity director on this spot? What is the message here...share as little good as possible? Would love to find out who did this mess.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

This commercial is ridiculous. I get the feeling when watching it that each person who is "sharing" the beer is not doing it so much as a goodwill gesture, but rather in a more american manner which is, "hey, I found this really hip beer and wanted to show you what an early adopter I am by giving one to you - now you go out and be cool too."

Gav - I agree with you that the Indian celebration is a joke - one beer for a party of several hundred? That is hilarious - more like - "hello, my third world friends, let me bestow upon you a REAL beer from America - just one - enjoy..."

We will probably see this utopia trend come full circle in the future, and then we can expect commercials where people don't want to share their beer with anyone - much like that old commercial from the 70's for Schlitz where the lumberjack warns that if you try to take his beer, then the 400 pound mountain lion behind him will kill you.

By the way the agency for the heineken spot was Wieden & Kennedy.